Times Square is a major commercial intersection, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Street. Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres btw 48th and 51st streets. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and his Columbia University colleagues (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson) are kicked out of their prestigious academic posts, they start a private practice as professional ghost-catchers.

It is a privately managed, nonprofit corporation with a public mission, operating with both private and public financing.
Although things do not start auspiciously for the three parascientists, their television advertisements finally pay off when beautiful Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) contracts them. It seems her apartment has become the entryway for ghastly ghosts and goofy ghouls hellbent on terrorising New York City.